


THE VIRTUES OF YOUNG MEN

by Mikkeneko



Series: A SPIRIT OUT OF FADE [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:52:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4205190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for #justicepositive week.  The Kirkwall crew are forced to reconsider some of their initial assumptions about Justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	THE VIRTUES OF YOUNG MEN

**Author's Note:**

> Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future.  
> -Lawrence of Arabia

It had become something of a game among the Kirkwall crew to educate (Anders tended to react badly when they used the word 'corrupt,' even jokingly,) Justice about the joys of the material world. Good food, good drink, happy and hearty company -- in other words, all the things he didn't tend to get only hanging out around Anders' clinic all the time. Justice had at least come to tolerate their efforts, so when Anders wanted a night's off, he would sometimes accompany them.

 ****Tonight they were there at the Hanged Man, again, but at least they were spared Corff's whiskey -- Varric had broken out some of his own private stash of wine, and it was going around the table to much merriment. Justice was grumbling, as usual, but they had learned to take the spirit's serious nature in stride as much as they did Isabela's blatant sensuality, Fenris' constant brooding, and Hawke's inability to be appropriate in absolutely any company he found himself in.

Hawke was sitting across the table from Justice -- probably playing footsie under the table if his sly grin was any indication -- while Isabela spurned the notion of subtlety and simply climbed into the spirit's lap. (Her blatant flirtations had had no effect on Justice yet, and Isabela was probably not even all that serious about it; she simply liked the challenge of the unattainable target, as well as a fascination with shiny and dangerous things.) Merrill sat on his other side, chattering happily away, while Varric tried to encourage Justice to drink some more wine.

"I do not wish to overindulge in mortal poisons again," Justice complained. "The effect they have on me is not salutory."

"The effect they have on you is _hilarious_ ," Isabela whispered in his ear; Justice tried half-heartedly to push her away, having long since learned that Isabela could be as clingy as an octopus.

"Just a few sips won't get you drink," Varric urged him. "C'mon, you have to at least try some. This is good stuff, Highever Black Label, been aging since the last Age. I'd bet this stuff is almost as old as you are!"

"Oh, that's a good question," Aveline said. "How old _are_  you, anyway, Justice?"

"Do you have a nameday?" Isabela purred into his other ear. "How would you like to _celebrate_  it?"

Justice frowned. "Spirits do not count their age as your mortals do, and time is different in the Fade," he said. "I could not say for certain."

"This is your first time in the mortal world, isn't it?" Merrill said. "I don't suppose you remember any big events of history, like wars or past Blights, that you could tell us about?"

"No." Justice shook his head. "We are aware of the mortals only through their dreams, as they appear and disappear again, as all things in the Fade. If I had to count time the way that you mortals do, I would say that I am about..." He paused for a moment, his fiery glow waxing and waning as though following the tide of his thought. "Nineteen hundred and forty-two."

Merrill and Isabela cried out in amazement, while Varric let out a whistle of appreciation. "Nice going, Glowy," he chuckled. "That puts you almost back to the founding of the Tevinter Imperium!"

" -- days old," Justice finished.

In the sudden silence, the sound of Aveline accidentally inhaling a mouthful of wine and then coughing uncontrollably, hand held over her nose and mouth, was very loud. Justice frowned at her. "That seems wasteful," he observed. "Considering the expense of this wine."

"Days?" Isabela repeated incredulously. _"Days?"_

"Uhm -- Justice, are you sure you don't mean years?" Merrill said tentatively. "We... normally count our age in years."

"There are no seasons in the Fade," Justice said. "You know this. The only passage of time is the nightly appearance and disappearance of dreamers, and thus is the only way to mark mortal time."

 _"Days?!"_ Hawke said in a strangled voice. His face had gone a greenish-pale under his skin, a highly unflattering contrast to his red tunic.

"But that would make you only..." Merrill trailed off uncertainly.

"-- slightly less than five and a half years old," Varric finished for her, apparently having a better head for numbers while drunk than the rest of them did sober.

"Maker," Aveline wheezed, clutching a sodden napkin to her chest as she stared across the table. "You're a _child!"_

The speed with which Isabela detangled herself from Justice and banished herself to the other end of the bench actually defied the unaided eye. She reappeared at the far end of the table, hands spread wide and leaning away from Justice. "I don't care how pretty the container is," she announced. "If the wine inside is that green, I'm not tapping that bottle."

"Too late," Hawke said hollowly.

"No more of this for you," Varric slid the untouched mug of wine back from Justice's hands. "Stones, Glowy, you aren't even old enough to be _in_  here!"

"I absolutely cannot permit you to come into combat situations with us any longer!" Aveline exclaimed. "The guardsmen have a strict eighteen-and-over policy."

Hawke thumped his head against the table hard enough to topple his glass of wine, and clapped his hands over his head as though he could bury himself under them. "Second thoughts, Hawke?" Varric murmured to him out of the side of his mouth; Hawke just thumped his head against the table again, harder.

"It was bad enough to know that Anders had a spirit passenger all the time," Hawke said in a pained whine. "But an _underage_  spirit..."

Justice huffed in irritation. "I am not as a mortal child -- I am not as mortals are at all. My kind do not 'grow up' as you mortals do. We simply become ourselves. In the Fade, to be self-aware is to be whole."

"Okay... so you have the full capacity of an adult, I get that," Varric placated, as diplomatic as ever. "But let's face it, you don't have the _experience_  of one."

Isabela raised one eyebrow. "You realize what we call that in human years," she suggested.

"You mean a teenager?" Aveline said with a frown. "You're saying Justice is the Fade equivalent of a _teenager?"_

"THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH," Hawke yelled, throwing his hands in the air. "GUYS, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW."

"I do not understand why this news comes as such a shock to you all," Justice complained. "I am no teenager. For nearly two thousand of your days have I existed as myself, and for all of that time I have fought for righteousness. I have slain demons beyond counting in the Fade, I have torn asunder the twisted domains of nightmare, I have..."

He cut himself off, the sort of abrupt transition they'd all grown accustomed to, and the glowing lines on Justice's face faded away like a candle that had been capped. Eldritch white eyes faded back into human honey-brown, and Anders wore an expression of tragic horror. "Oh, Maker," he said, voice wavering and breaking. Three acts of tragedy were packed into a mere four words. "What have I _done?"_

Anders backed away from the table, chair clattering behind him, and turned and bolted for the entrance of the tavern. The door slammed shut behind him, and Merrill turned to Varric in some confusion.

"What _has_ he done?" she asked. "I can't think of anything offhand."

"Search me," Varric said with a shrug.

"I mean, aside from the usual -- you know, killing bandits, stealing stuff, breaking laws, all that stuff we do all the time?"

Aveline winced. "Merrill, please," she said. "At least wait until I've gone to the ladies' room."

Hawke was looking after his feathered boyfriend with some worry. "I'd better go after him," he muttered, and started to stand up.

Isabela was there to push him back down in his seat again. "Hawke, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but whatever the absolute worst thing would be to say in this case, I have faith in you to find it and say it," she said. "Why don't _I_ go talk to him."

* * *

She found Anders in his clinic, which wasn't really a stretch of her detective skills -- its location was the worst-kept secret in Kirkwall. Isabela would (and occasionally did) mock him for his utter inability to keep a low profile, but she supposed that as a notorious pirate who spent all day hanging out in the most visible part of the most popular tavern in Lowtown, she didn't really have much room to criticize.

The lantern wasn't lit, but Isabela went in anyway. Anders was sitting on a stack of crates in the corner, head in his hands. He looked up at her when she came in, and Isabela was relieved to see that he hadn't been crying, although he looked desolate enough for it.

Despite what their friends seemed to think, Isabela did like Anders quite a lot -- he was a good healer, a fierce fighter, and a fond former lover. She simply had made it a life choice to not spend long periods of her free time doing things that were neither healthy nor enjoyable -- and getting involved in politics, hanging out in a shithole clinic in Darktown, and listening to Anders rant about the oppression of mages all fell into that category. The world was full of atrocities and always had been; no one could change that, so why dwell on it?

But she was still his friend. And if he ever needed her, she'd be there. She hoped he knew that.

Isabela sat down on the stack of crates a short distance from Anders. "Sweetie, what's this about?" she asked.

Anders looked down at the floor, arms wrapped around himself. "It was bad enough when I just thought I destroyed my friend," he said in a raw voice. "It's even worse now I know that I've corrupted an innocent."

"Mm, corruption of the innocent is usually something that I enjoy," Isabela said with a purr. "They usually enjoy it, too."

"This isn't funny!" Anders snapped.

"It's a little funny," Isabela disagreed.

Anders shook his head. "I took something pure and I defiled it," he said, choking up again. "The Maker will never forgive me."

Isabela sighed. She was actually capable of being sincere, although she didn't often bother. But Anders was clearly not in the mood to have his mood lightened. "Anders, I know what it means to be defiled, to be forced into something you don't want," she said seriously. "I know what it looks like from the outside, and from the inside too. That's not what Justice looks like, that's not how he acts. You didn't force him into anything."

Anders looked up at her, eyes widening. "I... I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it -- for her, not for himself. "But... this is different. This is..."

"Look, Anders, I knew you before you came to Kirkwall --" Isabela said.

"Only for a couple of hours," Anders protested.

Isabela chuckled. "Yes, but it was a pretty telling couple of hours," she said. She'd found you could learn a lot about people from sex -- their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses, their fears and desires. "I mean this in the nicest way possible but Anders, you're a pleaser. There's no way that you could have forced someone else to go against their wishes, let alone someone as stubborn as Justice is. It just couldn't happen."

Anders knotted his hands together, and wet his lips with a nervous flick of the tongue. "...It could happen if I deceived him," he said unhappily. "He didn't know better. He didn't know anything but what I told him. I could have filled him up with lies just like the Chantry does to us."

"So did you lie to him?" Isabela raised an eyebrow.

"No!" Anders denied it quickly. He looked down at the floor again. "...But... I did try to persuade him. I wanted him to agree with me."

"Don't we all?" Isabela shrugged. "From the story I've heard about yours and Justice's joining, it was a bit of an emergency situation, what with the templars and the fire and the darkspawn and the stabbings --"

"Which version of this story have you heard, exactly?" Anders asked, sounding alarmed.

" -- So it's not like either of you could really have made any other choice," Isabela finished. She put her hand on the back of his shoulders, feeling the twisted knots of tension there. "It sounds to me like you acted in good faith based on the knowledge you had at the time. You can't blame yourself for that. I get that maybe it didn't turn out quite like either of you wanted, but that's not your fault."

Anders sighed miserably. "Maybe not... but good intentions don't fix bad results.  What if I damaged him beyond repair because of my own selfishness?"

Isabela started rubbing his back, soothing circles to try to wash the tension away. "You're his _friend,"_  she said. "You care about him. The fact that you're beating yourself up over this now is proof that you aren't the sort of person you think you are."

"I..." Anders sagged, leaning slightly into her hands. "I wish I could believe you."

"So do," Isabela said with a firm squeeze. "Mama Isabela knows what she's talking about. Now get your head out of your ass and stop wallowing in guilt for imaginary crimes. There are plenty non-imaginary crimes awaiting!"

That got a laugh, at last, and Anders didn't resist when she stood up and pulled him to his feet behind her. Still a pleaser, after all this time, Isabela thought fondly, and led him back up to Lowtown and the rest of the party.

 

* * *

 

It was after midnight, the rest of the world asleep. A lone figure stood in front of the fire at the Amell estate; though it was banked to glowing coals, the white fire limning Justice's skin and hands was more than enough to provide illumination.

The spirit heard quiet footsteps, sensed the presence of another behind him, and spoke without taking his eyes from the fire. "I had hoped for a chance to speak with you," he said; his voice was subdued, banked like the fire to a low growl. "Hawke always speaks highly of your wisdom and your steadfastness, and I knew of none better to convey my message to Anders.

"Anders believes that he has destroyed my innocence." Justice turned around to face his companion, silhouetted by the last of the dying fire. "He mistakes ignorance for innocence. When he and I first met, I had little knowledge of the way of the world -- only a virtue to which I aspired, and a burning desire for purpose. It was through Anders that I discovered that purpose.

"I do not believe there was any virtue in my naivete, my mistaking small causes for great ones. There was a time when I could not distinguish between a small matter such as the domestication of a pet, and the oppression of an entire sentient people. Between the mindlessness of monsters and the great horrors that men perpetrate on their fellows. Anders helped me along the road to understanding, and in doing so I have become so much more than I was. I have become part of a great cause, and in doing so I myself became greater." Justice's usually harsh and angry features softened as he spoke of his host and friend, his voice becoming suffused with wonder.

"I do not regret any part of my journey or my growth. I do not regret Anders' rage; faced with injustice and atrocity, his fury is proper, it is righteous. That the fight for justice will be hard, and may require sacrifice, may be reason for sorrow -- but not for regret. This I swear by all that I know to be just. Please, tell Anders of my assurances -- and my gratitude."

**  
**

* * *

 

The next morning, Anders awoke with a crushing hangover, wondering why in the world Hawke's mabari had taken to jumping around him and barking excitedly, leaping up on his chest to lick his face and whining.

~end

**  
**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this actually came out of my Avvar!Hawke series: when Hawke first met Justice, he tried to greet him using the Avvar ritual greeting for a spirit. Justice of course had no idea wtf Hawke was doing, which made Hawke think that Justice must be a very young spirit (he's not necessarily, he's just not one of the spirits that the Avvar typically called on.) But the notion of Baby Justice sort of spiralled out of control -- we know he's new to the material world, but how do we know he's not just new, period? -- and it ended up fitting better into this 'verse.


End file.
